Language Development IV

Considering how I acquired language and how I grew up, my brain is very bilingual and it adapts to the environment I am in. While in India, I found myself reading more Tamil, speaking more Tamil, hearing different dialects of Tamil and thinking more in Tamil. I remember hitting road blocks while trying to do creative writing in English. My vocabulary tank hit empty often and I confuse tenses. Presently the case is reversed. In my case, I feel my Tamil is just dormant and will come back with immersion.

My parents are with me right now, which makes me focus on something interesting. My dad was educated in Tamil medium till he completed high school. English was just one of the subjects. But he studied his history, geography, math, science, for that matter even English, through Tamil. He started formal English medium in his undergrad. He later acquired three masters degrees and a PhD in organic chemistry. He says that he struggled quite a bit for the first couple of months in undergrad, but it was smooth sailing after that. I find that his English is REALLY good. Much better than mine! We are talking about the person, who represented Annamalai University in the National Level and received prizes from Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr.Radhakrishnan for his creative writing in English and his mono act as Shylock. This is not totally out of context, because this article triggered my train of thought.

Now to the challenges I face as an immigrant parent. Both my children started as very fluent in Tamil. When they started preschool, they could follow simple one sentence directions in English, but couldn’t talk other than yes or no. It was a silent language receiving period for them for the first two months of preschool. After that they started code switching. Now it is English all the time. Initially I thought that the fascination of the newly acquired language is making them talk in English all the time and that they will change. After two years, I feel that they have successfully converted me!

Most of the bilingual studies in the United States, I feel, cannot be applied to the unique case of the Indian immigrant. In the States, the focus is more on ‘ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE(ESL)’ learner. An ESL learner, is very fluent in his/her mother tongue, is introduced to English after the home language is mastered and continues to get her home language immersion at home, from relatives, peers from the same cultural background, entertainment media and books. Where as the development of home language in children of Indian immigrants is precarious. The children switch to English after they enter school and their level of home language immersion is not that great, owing to a great deficit in the dosage of home language they receive.

As a resident of the state of California, I am in a better shape when compared with my peers living in some remote city in the States. Here we have The California Tamil Academy, a Tamil school that we can send our children to. Not that an one hour a week, Tamil school is a cure all wonder, but in the worst case, one can at least hope that the children pick up some basic Tamil for survival. I volunteer to teach Tamil for a small group of ten year old children. I have to say that these children are pretty good. They can read, write and understand Tamil. They can talk, but are extremely self-conscious.

As a teacher how do I bridge the gap between spoken and written Tamil in my classroom? CTA follows the text books from Tamil Nadu text book society. Also the Tamil classes through CTA can count as foreign language credits in certain school districts in the Bay Area. So the text books have to be of a certain format and the syllabus has to meet certain standards. So the Tamil in the text book is appropriately formal for that level. From my observation of the children in my classroom, they do not think that that Tamil in text books are formal or different. They do not recognize the gap, because most of them converse mostly in English. Their dose of spoken Tamil at home is limited. Even if their parents talk in Tamil, an average ten year old gets a total 30 minute talk time with their parents after school-homework-homework related talk-play-extra curricular activities.

This is different from an average child growing up in India, where the child gets quite a bit of regional language from the environment and this language is different from what they read in books.

My aim as a Tamil teacher is to make the children feel comfortable talking in Tamil while helping them to read and write. Some how make them connect Tamil language and Tamil literacy. If at the end of a year, these children can recognize that there is a gap between spoken and written Tamil, I will be happy. Major portion of my 60 minute class is devoted to conversation. Most of the time, we talk about something that they can relate to. So I pick the young adult fiction to talk to them. (May the husband note that I am merely doing classroom research and Y.A Fiction is not to satisfy the child in me that refuses to grow up.) Books like this and this gets the conversation flowing effortlessly for a good 30 minutes. Every one has two cents to add and we help each other when we get struck forming a sentence in Tamil. The wimpy kid even branched off in to areas like right and wrong, about how bullying affects them etc.

12 Responses for "Language Development IV"

[…] Okay there is a gap. How do we deal with it? What are the challenges I face as a parent? What are the challenges I face as an immigrant parent? What do I do in my classroom as a Tamil teacher? Part IV people. […]

For me, utbt, it was the other way around. I never read any tamil books, didn’t talk in tamil much as it was considered ‘cool’ to talk in English in my school. Actually, there was a fine for talking in tamil. But, it was totally the environment that brought about the spoken tongue. And that is exactly the struggle out here in CA. I cannot restrict C to have just Tamil friends, can I? I can expose her to many of my Tamil friends and their children… but on a daily basis her friends will talk to her in English. I love the idea of the tamil classes – it will be good for children to speak to each other in tamil coz that is when they get comfortable in it.

UTBT SAYS: Even in Tamil classes you encounter the same problem, children speaking to each other in English and a teacher reminding them in repeat mode.

“The unique case of the Indian immigrant” — Exactly the main point — but the big question is why? Ok, we might not have an big extended family around us like say other immigrant populations do (especially when they have been around for 2 or 3 generations), but there enough collective of desis around. Why then when we meet with our friends we don’t chat in the indian language that is common? I think that is the crux of the matter. Often at birthday or baby showers I notice how parents suddenly start talking to their kids and their friends kids in English versus the common language, whatever that might be. I think in most cases (if not all) parents become complacent.

I know of many Chinese and Russian friends who send their kids to summer schools that converse completely in the native tongue. So having a school that teaches kids the Indian lang. is very important – even if it is only 1 hour a week. Its helps kids to bond, to gain confidence and understand that there are many languages, cultures, dialects out there. And yes its unfortunate that not all cities in US have that exposure. Even in bay area, so many languages are not represented.

Sorry about hogging the space … waiting for part 5.

UTBT SAYS: We are already from a country with hundreds of unique regional languages and one common language – English. That is why

Am not literate in Tamil (isn’t that sad?) because my mother is not fully literate in Tamil. She studied in Malayalam medium! So, the deal is that my mom self taught herself to read Tamil but cannot write it She used to write to my grandma in tamil spelt in malayalam

And since I grew up in Bangalore there was no immersion either so I grew up speaking a blend of Tamil and Malayalam and learning to read/write neither. Ofcourse I speak Kannada (better than even Tamil) and can read and write Kannada so that is something to salvage the ego

Now my problem is what do I teach my children? I want them to be literate and fluent in Tamil but I am illiterate myself. The husband is barely literate in Tamil but won’t make the effort. Should I send her to Tamil classes? Or should I just stick to Kannada since that will be of more “use” to her since we live here.

These are all the questions in my head – I don’t know what I’m going to do..

P.S As for those books – they came back

UTBT SAYS: Poppy sorry about the books. More in email.

What do you teach your children? My thumb rule, spoken language many at a time, children are amazing code switchers. Writing and reading – one at a time starting at five years. Based on your situation, for practical reasons, Kannada and Hindi will get more preference over Tamil. If not everything, at least something.

I would like to differ from you on one point. Children in India do hear the regional language spoken but not among their peer group. They still get only those 30 minutes with a parent speaking in the native tongue. In a cosmopolitan set-up where the common language remains English, children speak to each other and other adults in English. So we are not much better off here in India.
Btw, thanks for visiting my post. Nice to see friends there.

UTBT SAYS: You are right Sandhya. My post originated from my view of India 11 years back and much has happened in the past 11 years. Not much better off in India too. Sigh.

utbt – I said this somewhere else as well – it is also part of our education system that leads the students and parents think that ‘languages’ are not important from an IIT/ Engg/ Medical perspective. I had a lot of friends who took French as second language because it is easier to score more marks!
Luckily, I am in love with Tamizh and also self taught myself to read and write Malayalam as well.
Hopefully, things are changing for the better now…

Poppy – In my opinion, it doesn’t matter which regional language we are picking up (unless you are attached to anything particular) – it is about learning a different structure and imbibing a different culture through the grammar and the literature. It gives the advantage of being able to see different perspectives…
UTBT SAYS: In a country like India, everything other than Math and Science are viewed as periphery subjects That was the trend when I grew up.

Currently, like Poppy mentioned in one of her comments, we are a generation of super involved parents, trying our best to do the right thing. We can only wait and watch how things turn out.

utbt – btw, read your nazhi post, albeit late. I thought it was very well written. You should attempt something like, ‘Oru Nazhiyin Payanam’ or ‘Nazhi sollum Kadai’ and narrate the differences in lifestyles across three generations through the Nazhi’s eye…
Please…

UTBT SAYS: Uma, thanks for your time. For some reason, your suggestion reminds me of Sivashankari’s Palangal (at least that is what I think the book is, talks about grand mother, mother and daughter and the generational differences). But honestly I don’t think I have it in me. Mainly because I know for sure that I get confused with the voice of the narration and with tenses. But I will keep this in my mind for future and attempt a short piece, hoping that a small piece will keep my writing deficiencies to the minimum, with my perspective and my kids’ on something.

UTBT, one observation I have made … with my first one it was easy to impose my mother tongue Kannada. It was rule we strictly followed… so communicate with each other in Kannada. Needed plenty of reminders for my child to get the message … but it worked.
Now with the second one its different. As much as I’d like to enforce the same rule, the sisters communicate with each other in English … and I am not always around to remind them to communicate in Kannada. The 2nd one is still less than two and speaks 2-3 words sentences …. but somehow we seem to slowly be losing out on the “Kannada Only at home” rule.

UTBT SAYS: Aaahaaa. That is something I notice at home too. Bonding in English.

[…] has been born I have been thinking how to make him pick up his native languages… And then utbt did this series of posts on languages which made so much sense to me and at the same time came Tullika’s blogathon about the same. […]

They say ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ (well, this is the title of Hillary Clinton’s book). Indian education cuts off children from their society by giving more than necessary attention to foreign language and by ignoring the local language. The result is a population that lacks originality and lacks respect for its own traditions.

UTBT SAYS: Thanks for the link Anon. I think ignoring the local language and cutting off people from local language is only the side effect. The main purpose of the British introducing English and the current system of education is to create ’employable people’. India being a unique country with many languages and many dialects within every language, the concept of one common medium of communication one common language to do govt business just caught on. But further changes to our education system should have been made as soon as we attained freedom. But with most of our leaders being Oxford or Cambridge educated, that didn’t happen.

I see a lot of children in India switching very comfortably between English and the native language depending on the person they are speaking to.

What do you think, is the difference in a child growing up in India outside of his native state and a child growing up in the US? In both cases, the child is exposed to his/her mother tongue only at home and outside the home its mostly English. But, I find the kids in India are very fluent in their native tongue as compared to their US counterparts.

UTBT SAYS: Definitely exposure I would say. A child growing up outside gets lesser of the home language. Children in India interact more with the generation of adults with whom they speak home language.

Reg children in India growing up outside their home state: Language theorists have different ideas on how children pick up language. One of the theories is that children are born with a language well that enables them to learn ANY language. In the first few years the sounds they hear gets reinforced and the sounds the don’t are lost. Growing up in India even if it in other states, I would say that we have certain sound systems and patterns that are common for lot of Indian languages. The language sounds the children hear gets better reinforcement. So it is easy for them to be fluent.